Lost Leadership

I’m surprised.

Surrounded in controversy Eleanor Roosevelt met the enemy Nikita Kruschev. In an interview afterward, she said our duty is to show those trying to decide between Russia and the USA that freedom is better. She said this is our challenge. She said, “It can’t be met just with guns.”

What is your feeling about the possibility of peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union? Can America and Russia peacefully co-exist?

MS. ROOSEVELT: At the present moment, I think it will take some time. I–we’re living in a time when everything is changing. I think that we have to consider that there may be changes there and there may be some changes here. I would not say that as they are today there would be any basis for co-existence. We can live in the same world, of course, but co-operatively, it would be difficult.

There’s no use in belittling your rival.

There’s no use in putting your head in the sand and saying, “I don’t want to know.” It’s much better to know because what we have to prove to the neutral world or the world that is judging between us all the time, is that with freedom, we can actually do more for the lives of people than they can do with their system. And that’s the important challenge. That’s what we have to meet. It can’t be met just with guns.